Chapter 7
“You worthless bitch! Where’s the money?” her father screamed at her over the telephone. She was at work and trying to get over the fact that someone broke into her apartment. The police thought that it may have been her brother, but the small safe she had bolted down in her closet wasn’t even tampered with. Instead, her lingerie, her entire bedroom, including her drawing desk, computer and supplies were.
“I sent you the thousand dollars.”
“Bullshit! You’re holding out. Now you don’t want to pay us? You think you’re too good. We took care of you. You owe us for putting up with your fat, disgusting self.”
The tears stung her eyes. When were her parents name-calling and insults going to not affect her? When?
“It can’t be. I did send it. I have five thousand dollars in that account.”
“Five thousand and you only send us one? If you were here right now, Tia, I’d give you an ass whipping and you’d be damn sure to show me respect. Send us the money and make it two thousand from now on.”
He hung up the phone. His voice and his threats lingered in her mind. She tried to stop the shaking. She was almost as upset as when the detectives asked her if she had an ex-boyfriend or lover who was stalking her. Maybe someone she met that didn’t want her out of his life. She mentioned Salvador. She had thought about Hudson and Jagger. No way. They weren’t those kind of men. But she did have to ask herself the question, which only led to her missing them, and the safety of their arms. She made her decision. Now she had to live with it.
Her father frightened her even more so than her brother.
She pulled her personal account information up on the bank computer. She then saw that her savings account was still secure, and her mere twenty-two thousand dollars and twenty cents were still there. She sighed in relief. Not that it was much, but it was hers.
She then opened up the small account she set up to do direct money transfers to Western Union through her account to her parents’ account. As she logged in and saw the balance, she was shocked. It was at zero. Three phone calls later and then one to the police, she realized she had been robbed. Detective Owens said that if it were her brother or someone else who ransacked her apartment and took any leftover receipts that they could then steal the money from the account.
The bank was trying to trace the money, but it was a Saturday, and the bank would be closing soon. Monday could give more answers.
She then had to withdraw a thousand dollars, not two, from her savings to a new direct transfer account. She refused to send the man two thousand dollars. She just couldn’t survive if she kept that up once a month. That was like a house mortgage.
At least work was going well. S
he had impressed the board with her new ideas, and was finalizing the fall catalogue for publishing. She was finally where she belonged and getting the recognition she felt she deserved. But even now, with her work a success, she had an even greater hollow feeling inside.
She wished she could have stayed in Paris with Hudson and Jagger forever.
* * * *
“Okay, so let me get this straight. Hudson, you meet this sexy, full-figured goddess, the answer to your fantasies, in Paris and sleep with her. Then, while you’re running late from a meeting, Jagger is asleep in the hotel room with jet lag, and this woman mistakes him for you?” Jett asked.
“Then Jagger has his way with her until she realizes it’s not Hudson. So even after all the confusion, she stays with the two of you, and now you want us to help you two find her?” Flynn asked.
Zane, Cash, Nash, and Riker sat around the poker table half shocked and half chuckling. Emerson and Stone were smiling ear to ear.
“Ahh, so now that the two of you found an amazing woman, it’s not so corny to feel in love?” Stone asked with an attitude.
Hudson knew that he and Jagger had teased the guys immensely when they met their women, but he was too on edge right now to fight with them.
“Fuck you. This is crazy. We met her, she’s perfect, but she seemed scared.”
“Well, hell, Hudson, look at the size of you and your fucking brother. People move out of the way the moment you enter a room. You probably scared her, double-teaming her like that,” Stone teased.
“Stop being such a dick,” Jagger replied.
“Well, what do you know about her?” Flynn asked.
“What made you think that she was scared?” Cash asked.
“She got this phone call when she was going to leave. She seemed really shaken up and just scared. It was a gut instinct, but I think she was in trouble or it was bad news,” Hudson replied.
“We don’t know where she lives. We did find this Western Union money transfer receipt in the hotel room. It was half ripped, so we couldn’t get her name, just that the money went to Missouri,” Jagger added.
“Was the whole account number on there?” Jett asked as he rose from his seat.